It is exceedingly rare but remains possible. A young man who didn't play AAU ball during high school and doesn't reside in a metropolis has earned a D1 scholarship. Plus, his ride is from a West Coast Conference school, home of hoops heavyweights Gonzaga and St. Mary's.
6-foot-4 Jayden Russotti of Windsor High north of San Francisco Bay is headed to Pepperdine to play for new head coach Ed Schilling. Why the Waves? "I liked the staff and coaches and the school is like a resort (Pepperdine is in Malibu, right on the Pacific Ocean)."
"I didn't play AAU (during high school) but Coach Schilling came to watch me work out. He knows my father Jeremy Russotti (who is well known for training NBA players as well as recently starting up very successful high school and post prep teams that compete extremely well nationally). I feel very fortunate." He'll be positioned as a shooting guard.
The Golden State Prep Difference
Far too modestly, Russotti answered a query about his current best assets with "my shooting, a little athleticism and playing off the ball screening and cutting." He noted that "in high school, I wasn't the best shooter." But he decided on taking a gap year after graduation to play on Golden State Prep, a post high school squad started some years back by his father and another Bay Area hoops maven Phil Doherty, and it made all the difference.
His inner fire rekindled, his hops dramatically increased, and Russotti became deadly from beyond the three-point line.
Morphing
"From my senior year in high to now, I'm a completely different player. Call me a late bloomer because I was 5-foot-5 as a sophomore and now I'm 6-foot-4. My body has changed with work as has my skills. I play a very different level of basketball now."
Besides having a father available to talk hoops, early on as a youngster, the younger Russotti trained alongside Josh Akognon and they became friends. The 5-foot-11 Nigerian-American Akognon, whose high school freshman season was his initiation to organized hoops, is something of a hoops marvel. He trained with the elder Russotti, never played AAU ball, yet he earned a scholarship to Washington State University and later transferred to Cal State Fullerton. After blossoming for Fullerton, Akognon took to the court for the Dallas Mavericks and Memphis Grizzlies as well as performing for many years overseas. His is a great story. Russotti will be teaming up with Akognon again this summer to train.
Russotti played on a Dream Vision AAU squad in fifth and sixth grade but his desire lessened and he never returned to that sphere. He did play during high school but the competition wasn't challenging. Now glad for his decision and time at Golden State Prep and his re-emergence, Russotti's goals are to not let all my work go to waste, to establish myself as a D1 player, become a starter and break out a bit."
He certainly comes from a sports family as his father played basketball at Sonoma State while his mother was on the diamond as a softball player also at Sonoma State.
Best memories
Russotti's best basketball moments numbered two with both occurring while a member of Golden State Prep. "Against a Top 10 team (Link Academy) back in Massachusetts, we beat them by 20 something points. I had seven threes in the game (shooting 7-10 on treys), scored 28 points and shot 63% on threes that weekend." Then there was another game at another time where he buried seven treys in the first quarter. No, that is not a typo.
His second choice: "A teammate threw the ball to me but it was headed out of bounds. I somehow grabbed it and threw the ball towards our basket with my back to it. A seven-foot teammate was running the floor and he ended up dunking the ball."
Russotti is still thinking about a major. "Either business or communications," he explained.
So will something close to a miracle strike again four years hence? Not Akognon 2 but more appropriately Russotti 1?
Stay tuned.
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